Lu Xingyan returned to his room sometime in the second half of the night.
The late-night food Jiang Wanyi had brought home was downstairs. After he and Jiang Ji finished sneaking around, they went down and each pretended to eat a few bites.
Jiang Ji behaved as though nothing had happened. Lu Xingyan, meanwhile, was so nervous he felt like swallowing emergency heart pills.
“Toy.” What an awfully familiar word.
Many years ago, when Sun Cheng had asked Lu Xingyan, “Why do you spend every day circling around Jiang Ji?” Lu Xingyan had raised his chin arrogantly and answered, “He’s my toy. I like playing with him.”
Young Sun Cheng had looked confused. “Why does it feel like you’re the one being played?”
Lu Xingyan had flown into a rage. “What the hell would you know?”
The reason that conversation happened was because something extremely stupid had occurred that day.
At the time, Lu Xingyan and Jiang Ji had already known each other for over two years.
Jiang Ji’s high school frequently held extra classes and usually finished later than Lu Xingyan’s school. Under the pretext of “waiting for Brother so we can go home together,” Lu Xingyan constantly wandered around Jiang Ji’s school looking for trouble.
Perhaps he had a natural talent for espionage. With practically no effort, he contacted one of Jiang Ji’s classmates and recruited them as an informant to monitor Jiang Ji’s movements—specifically his romantic movements.
“Which girls did Jiang Ji talk to today? Did he say more than three sentences to any of them?”
“Did anyone give him a love letter?”
“What? Someone confessed again? How did he react?”
And so on.
That afternoon, his informant told Lu Xingyan that a girl planned to stop Jiang Ji after school, invite him to an ice-cream shop on the snack street outside campus, and confess to him.
Apparently, the girl was pretty and had good grades. Jiang Ji often worked on problems with her, so they were suspected of having a mutual crush.
Lu Xingyan sneered when he heard about it.
Why was Jiang Ji so popular?
Everyone in the world had gone blind and been deceived by him.
Lu Xingyan therefore had no choice but to sacrifice himself as humanity’s savior and help this girl recognize Jiang Ji’s true nature before it was too late.
Lu Xingyan found her and said, “Are you XXX? I’m giving you some advice. Stop pursuing Jiang Ji.”
The girl looked baffled. “Who are you?”
“Don’t ask. I don’t leave my name when I do good deeds. All you need to know is that Jiang Ji is a terrible person. For your own sake, stay away from him.”
The girl was speechless. “Are you crazy?”
Seeing that this person was apparently beyond salvation, Lu Xingyan became angry. “You’ll regret it!”
Before he finished speaking, a hand reached from behind, caught his collar, and dragged him several steps backward. A familiar male voice sounded behind him. “Sorry. My little brother is an idiot. Please excuse him.”
“…”
After apologizing to the girl, Jiang Ji dragged Lu Xingyan out through the school gate, across the road, and onto the sidewalk. If Lu Xingyan had not already grown so much by then that he physically could not fit into the roadside trash can, Jiang Ji probably would have thrown him straight into it.
“You’re already fourteen, Lu Xingyan,” Jiang Ji said coldly. “Not four. Try pulling something like that again and see what happens.”
Lu Xingyan showed no fear whatsoever. “What, are you mad? Did I ruin your good thing?”
“Stop asking for a beating.”
“You dare!” Nobody knew what was wrong with Lu Xingyan’s brain. Every sentence out of his mouth sounded less human than the last. “You’re going to hit me because of that girl? You like her that much?”
He even glared, his black eyes beginning to shine with moisture as though he were deeply wronged. Jiang Ji laughed from anger. “Get lost. Don’t come to my school again.”
“You think you can stop me?” Seeing Jiang Ji turn away with his backpack, Lu Xingyan attached himself to him like a tail. “I’ll come if I want. I’ll come every day. It’s not like you own the school. While I was waiting outside just now, someone even brought me a drink and asked, ‘Hey, handsome, what class are you in?’”
“Oh.”
“What do you mean, oh? I’m very popular, you know. If I wanted to, I’d have more people chasing me than you do.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, my ass! Jiang Ji, you’re not likable at all.”
“Oh.”
“…Say ‘oh’ one more time and I’m getting angry!”
Whether Lu Xingyan got angry or not meant nothing to Jiang Ji, but he stopped saying “oh.” Not because he had been threatened into submission—he simply no longer wanted to acknowledge this idiot’s existence.
Lu Xingyan decided that meant he had won. Jiang Ji was still willing to back down for him.
That evening, after returning home, he met Sun Cheng and the others to play soccer in the residential complex. Afterward, he bragged to Sun Cheng, “I ruined my brother’s romance.”
Sun Cheng was surprised. “How?”
Lu Xingyan answered casually, “Is there anything I decide to do that I can’t accomplish? I barely had to lift a finger.”
Sun Cheng immediately exposed him. “‘Barely had to lift a finger’ means running to his school every single day after class, standing around hungry waiting to block him, terrified you might miss him?”
“…” Lu Xingyan lost face. “It wasn’t every day. Just once in a while.”
“You ‘once in a while’ went six times in five school days this week,” Sun Cheng said. “Why do you spend every day circling around Jiang Ji?”
And that was how the whole “he’s my toy” conversation had begun.
Lu Xingyan believed the so-called toy had always been Jiang Ji, never him.
The fact that he revolved around Jiang Ji meant he controlled the initiative. He revolved around him when he wanted to and stopped when he did not. What was there to question?
Tonight was the same. Superficially, Jiang Ji had been the one to propose making Lu Xingyan his toy, but in reality, Jiang Ji had taken the bait.
Lu Xingyan returned to his room so excited that imaginary firecrackers went off all night, even in his dreams.
He had not immediately agreed to Jiang Ji because he still wanted to pretend to be reserved and keep his brother waiting.
At the time, Jiang Ji’s hand had been around him and Lu Xingyan had nearly lost control, but he had exhausted every scrap of self-restraint in his life and held out until Jiang Ji’s hand was sore. Only after Jiang Ji gave him one long, lingering deep kiss had Lu Xingyan finally surrendered.
He replayed it over and over, the scent of his brother’s shampoo lingering in his mind.
His imagination suddenly ran wild and produced a new picture: Jiang Ji helping him again, except not with his hand this time, but with… his lips.
Those soft lips he had kissed again and again and bitten until they were slightly swollen.
“…”
Lu Xingyan’s arm tensed. He got himself off one more time before finally falling asleep.
＊
Jiang Ji only had two days off for the May Day holiday. The following morning, he looked completely normal as he sat in the dining room eating breakfast.
Today he wore a mint-green collared shirt and beige casual trousers. The sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms, revealing clean wrists.
Without a serious suit adding age to his appearance, his aura resembled that of a male college student.
When Lu Xingyan came downstairs, Jiang Ji looked up at him.
The marks from last night had already faded. Jiang Ji’s collar sat low, leaving his neck completely bare and pale. Each time he swallowed, his Adam’s apple moved gently.
“…” Lu Xingyan sat opposite him and made a determined effort not to look.
“Xiao Yan, didn’t you sleep well last night?” All four family members were at the table. Jiang Wanyi said, “Why does your sleep schedule keep getting better and worse? Were you staying up late streaming again?”
“No.” Lu Xingyan lowered his head and served himself a bowl of porridge as naturally as possible. “My sleep quality hasn’t been very good lately.”
“You don’t go outside enough. You should get more sunlight,” Jiang Wanyi said scientifically. “Not getting daylight affects melatonin production. And exercise should happen outdoors too. You can’t spend all your time in an indoor gym. Oh, right, didn’t you say on Moments last time that you were going hiking? Why didn’t you go?”
Before Lu Xingyan could answer, Lu Yong said, “Everything he posts on Moments is nonsense. Believing him would be like believing me when I say I’ve really quit smoking.”
Jiang Ji laughed.
“What are you laughing at?” Lu Xingyan snatched a shrimp dumpling out from under Jiang Ji’s chopsticks. “Did you get any sun? Did you go hiking?”
“I sleep very well. You don’t need to worry about me.” Jiang Ji picked up another shrimp dumpling, finished it, then set down his chopsticks. “I’m done. Take your time.”
He stood to leave. Lu Xingyan hurriedly asked, “Where are you going? Are you going out today?”
“No. I’m going to get some sun.”
“…”
Once Jiang Ji left, Lu Xingyan lost interest in breakfast. He filled his stomach without paying much attention, then followed him outside.
Now that May had begun, most of the flowers in the garden had already faded, but the weather was warm and clear, and the greenery had grown even more lush.
Jiang Ji sat on a stone bench, apparently replying to messages.
Lu Xingyan walked over and glanced down at his phone screen. “Who?”
“Someone you don’t know.” Jiang Ji asked, “You don’t have anything planned for the holiday? You’re just going to sleep at home every day?”
“No. I have a date today.”
Lu Xingyan deliberately referred to a gathering with his buddies as a “date.” Technically, it was not incorrect, but in ordinary conversation the word carried at least a hint of romantic ambiguity.
He wanted to see Jiang Ji’s reaction. The man did not even raise his head, continuing to type while multitasking. “Go, then. Stop being a shut-in at home.”
Lu Xingyan said, “…”
What did shut-ins ever do to you?
What kind of attitude is this?
Didn’t you want that kind of relationship with me? I haven’t even agreed yet. Can’t you at least act like someone whose appetite I’m supposed to be whetting?
Lu Xingyan glared coldly. Jiang Ji, however, treated him like air, replying to one person and then another like some kind of social butterfly. Why had the spring winds of April failed to blow him away?
“Hey, Jiang Ji.”
“Mm?”
“I have a friend whose birthday is today.”
“Oh.”
“…”
Oh, what?
Lu Xingyan finally lost patience. He grabbed Jiang Ji’s face with both hands and forced him to look up. “It’s Sun Cheng’s older cousin Gu Xiaobo. Do you remember him?”
Jiang Ji did. “The moron who broke my window three times playing soccer with you, got beaten up by me, then confessed that you were the one who told him to do it?”
Lu Xingyan said, “…”
Why was his memory so good? Lu Xingyan became awkward.
But after enough episodes of embarrassment, a person grew accustomed to them. Intimate physical contact was another matter. His hands were cupping Jiang Ji’s warm face as though holding some delicate object, and Lu Xingyan did not know whether to grip more lightly or more firmly.
He had originally reached out only to lift Jiang Ji’s face and make him look at him, but after more than three seconds of contact, his hands seemed to become stuck there and refused to come away.
Lu Xingyan drew a small breath, cheeks warming. “Don’t look at me like that.”
Jiang Ji was expressionless. “How am I looking at you?”
Lu Xingyan said, “…”
What was I trying to say again? Oh, right. That moron’s birthday.
“Gu Xiaobo’s birthday party. We’re going to a KTV place. Everyone invited is someone we know…” Lu Xingyan finally let go. His speech became halting, while Jiang Ji gave a careless “mm” to show he was listening.
Lu Xingyan continued, “They all have girlfriends. I don’t.”
“So you don’t. Are people without dates banned from the door?”
After giving him two decent replies, Jiang Ji lowered his head and started messaging again. Lu Xingyan snatched his phone away and said quietly, “Come with me.”
“…” Jiang Ji laughed. “Am I supposed to pretend to be your girlfriend?”
“I don’t care. You’re coming with me.” Lu Xingyan had neither justification nor confidence. “You know him too, so you count as someone familiar. It won’t be weird if you come. Is that not okay?”
Jiang Ji said nothing. His mint shirt made his face appear especially pale, and in the sunlight even the faint shadows cast by his eyelashes were clearly visible.
Lu Xingyan stared in a daze for a moment, then abruptly changed into a tragic, long-suffering tone and murmured, “Bro, last night I wanted to date you, but you told me to become your toy instead. You deeply wounded my dignity. Do you know that?”
Before Jiang Ji could react, Lu Xingyan continued in a single breath. “But I love you so much, what can I do? If you come to the party with me today, I’ll cast aside my dignity and shame and enter that… that kind of relationship with you.”
“That’s quite a sacrifice.” Since Lu Xingyan had gone this far, Jiang Ji respectfully gave him face and agreed with a nod.
Although the problem was that even if someone did not make Lu Xingyan throw away his dignity and shame, he did not seem to possess much of either.